Camelback ski ranger takes the ride of his life

A Gouldsboro man's brief trip down a steep Pocono ski trail came with a round-trip ticket to eternity.

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poconorecord.com

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Posted Mar. 23, 2014 at 12:01 AM

Posted Mar. 23, 2014 at 12:01 AM

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A Gouldsboro man's brief trip down a steep Pocono ski trail came with a round-trip ticket to eternity.

And during his journey, he would learn it takes more than technology to sustain life.

Ranger Patroller Jerry Linder, 62, made tight turns along the right edge of an expert trail at Camelback Mountain Resort two weeks ago. After all, the best snow is always on the sides of the trails.

Jerry, a 10-year ranger veteran, leaned the wrong way, caught an edge and ejected from his skis. He became airborne, launching head-first off the trail.

His head smashed against a tree at the bottom of a steep embankment.

Jerry radioed for assistance, yet so calmly, everyone monitoring the radios thought it was a routine guest injury. He called in his location as off the left side of the trail.

But Jerry, lying upside down and disoriented, didn't realize he was actually off the right side.

Ski and ranger patrollers were dispatched and skied right by him before calling the trail clear.

"When I made the call and that call wasn't answered, that's when I made a second call. That was all the strength I had left. I couldn't move after that," he said.

Ski patrollers stabilized Jerry's body in a toboggan for a trip down the trail. His condition was serious, and a helicopter had already been dispatched to take him to a level one trauma center in the Lehigh Valley.

Robyn Jones, a ranger who Jerry started with 10 years ago, talked to him constantly, reassuring him, trying to keep him awake.

The toboggan was at the bottom of a steep embankment, and SOP was to pull it up onto the trail with ropes. But Jerry was a big, burly guy, having served as a constable in Lackawanna County.

It wouldn't be easy or fast to bring him up. And Jerry was dying.

That's when Lynn Leauber, an experienced ski patroller, grabbed hold of the toboggan's handles and negotiated it through a nearly impossible maze of dense trees on a steep slope. Time was of the essence.

Jerry was soon loaded into an ambulance for the half-mile drive to the helicopter landing zone.

Robyn jumped into the ambulance, continuing to talk to Jerry. Steve Chaladoff, the ranger patrol director, also jumped in.

"Hey, I'm going too, that's one of my guys," he said.

Jerry went into cardiac arrest while being prepped for the helicopter ride at the LZ. Jerry remembered hearing someone say "he stopped breathing."

"You know that this is it," Jerry said. "And you're watching, and you're watching your life. And all of a sudden it starts circling, lighter and lighter and then it starts narrowing down. And then all of a sudden you realize, 'What's at the bottom?' Isn't anything. All it is is breaking up, it's disintegrating. Coats and colors and everything. And you're falling down into another dimension.

"That's all I can describe it as. Maybe God's at the other end to put you back together." Jerry hesitated. "It's awesome."

Paramedics brought him back, and Jerry made it to the trauma center, where doctors plated two broken vertebrae in his neck. The injury caused some paralysis of his legs and parts of his upper body. He's slowly getting most of it back.

Jerry, in his hospital bed, held his gray ski helmet, which had a sharp dent where his head hit the tree. He talked about all of his colleagues at the mountain who helped him when he couldn't help himself.

"The time that was bought for me, and whatever they were able to do to keep me going, that made all the difference," he said.

Looking down at the scarred helmet, Jerry choked back tears.

"So yeah, helmets save lives alright. But not just helmets. Good friends, too."